Clarendon House Publications

01/07/2025

If the truth about stories is that they are like icebergs, with 80% of what makes them work lying beneath the surface, then we can use that image to elaborate upon the two broad approaches to story-telling: the ‘writing from the imagination’ method and the outline method…

If the truth about stories is that they are like icebergs, with 80% of what makes them work lying beneath the surface, then we can use that image to elaborate upon the two broad approaches to story-telling: the ‘writing from the imagination’ method and the outline method. For both kinds of write...

30/06/2025

Plot Power comes in many forms. Emotion, character qualities, the fact that your story is in a genre - I’m not going to deny that these things probably make it easier for a writer to get a shallow sort of attraction from readers.

But I have met HUNDREDS of writers who were literate, imaginative, very capable and well organised, packed their stories with emotional language, had great characters and who wrote within recognisable and accepted genres, and they had a terrible time attracting readers.

All of these things belong to that part of the iceberg readers can see. When it comes to deep reader attraction, there's only one kind of power that really counts, the kind of power that every successful story uses, the power that lies beneath the surface of the story.

There are four specific kinds of power in a successful plot. They work beneath its surface, but bring about four separate visible aspects. Underestimate these things at your peril…

Plot Power comes in many forms. Emotion, character qualities, the fact that your story is in a genre - I’m not going to deny that these things probably make it easier for a writer to get a shallow sort of attraction from readers. But I have met HUNDREDS of writers who were literate, imaginative, v...

29/06/2025

29/06/2025

I’ve explained elsewhere that deep attraction comes when you give a reader the feeling of being drawn into an emptiness or gap or loss or void desired by a character he or she can recognise. From that definition, we get three elements of deep attraction- recognition, mystery, and emptiness…

I’ve explained elsewhere that deep attraction comes when you give a reader the feeling of being drawn into an emptiness or gap or loss or void desired by a character he or she can recognise. From that definition, we get three elements of deep attraction- recognition, mystery, and emptiness. If you...

27/06/2025

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27/06/2025

As a child, I grew up in the ancient kingdom of Elmet on the edge of the Peak District in South Yorkshire, where I walked in the green hills and through stone-walled fields. I fell in love with fiction then, and invented many stories and characters of my own. Then at the age of 8, I travelled with my family but against my will to the empty, hot deserts of Australia.

I was heartbroken and inconsolable.

But I found a window onto my lost world through the stories of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. I eventually went to university to discover their secrets, and was on the edge of completing a seven-year study into them when Life interrupted me. Right on the brink of a major epiphany, I was pulled in an entirely different direction.

The universe of stories went spinning out of my hands as I had to concentrate on the workaday world. I had to figure out a way of getting back to my quest but was torn away from it for years, having to confront all kinds of things about Life and people and what made them tick while working as a counsellor and executive in a job which was all-consuming.

Miraculously, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise…

As a child, I grew up in the ancient kingdom of Elmet on the edge of the Peak District in South Yorkshire, where I walked in the green hills and through stone-walled fields. I fell in love with fiction then, and invented many stories and characters of my own. Then at the age of 8, I travelled with m...

26/06/2025

In the world as it appears, there is an almost infinite pool of attention swirling around in the minds of potential readers, being drawn hither and thither according to what vacuums are in the vicinity…

In the world as it appears, there is an almost infinite pool of attention swirling around in the minds of potential readers, being drawn hither and thither according to what vacuums are in the vicinity. On the surface, vacuums seem to be created and filled: if you cannot fill a vacuum for someone, y...

25/06/2025

When working on a protagonist, you are building a construct, not a person…

When working on a protagonist, you are building a construct, not a person. By all means, assemble whole filing cabinets full of imagined personal data about the character. Many very successful writers operate that way. I once knew a wannabe writer who had such a filing cabinet, outlining even what s...

24/06/2025

NEW RELEASE FROM CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS!
POETICA # 24: AN INNER CIRCLE WRITERS' GROUP POETRY ANTHOLOGY
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/anthologies
There is a common assumption among poets and readers generally that ‘There is no market for poetry.’ I hear this regularly.

This idea arises because, in the big world of publishing, poetry is seen to be a private, highly subjective affair which correspondingly does not sell well. Personal tastes, obscurity of form, and lack of poetic craft all add up to poetry being ‘shoved into the corner’ and usually only self-published or produced as a vanity piece.

This is a shame. There are a great many good poets out there: thousands of voices whose passionate visions of reality are not finding a proper outlet. Without channels to transmit these visions to readers, they can eventually fall silent.

The effort of this series of Poetica anthologies is to contribute to the creation of a market for poetry throughout the calendar year. The idea is that, by providing a regular, published venue for poetry from all over the world, poems as media for the communication of important and heartfelt ideas and reflections will gain in respect and become more widely acknowledged. Voices will be heard; channels will be opened.

Poetica # 24 features the work of David Painter, Fhen M., Craig Richard Tickner, Hanna Biali, John Grey, Kerri Jesmer, Afshan Aqil, Peter Kenny, Giuseppina Marino Leyland, Jacek Wilkos, DJ Elton, Annie Nardone, Jim Bates, Linda M. Crate, Mike Turner, Maggie D Brace, Marlene Fabian Stiles, Tony Fyler, Sharon Frame Gay, the Birch Twins, Catherine A. MacKenzie, Dawn DeBraal, Trish Bailey, Sultana Raza, Suranjit Gain, Thomas R. Bates, Anhait Arustamyan, Allan Tierney, Kelli J Gavin, Gareth Macready, Quinn Graw, Justin Wiggins, Michal Reiben, Jean Frost Smith, Tim Law, Gabriella Balcom and Linda Sparks.

Grab your paperback or Kindle version here:
https://www.clarendonhousebooks.com/anthologies

24/06/2025

A protagonist and an antagonist can be basically the same figure, walking down different roads…

A protagonist and an antagonist can be basically the same figure, walking down different roads. A protagonist starts with a loss which grows bigger and bigger as the story moves on. Each idea, tool or action which he or she takes turns out to be wrong, or inadequate. Often the protagonist makes thin...

23/06/2025

90% of writers - those that actually get started on writing - sit down and simply write scene after scene straight from their imaginations. It’s a huge part of the attraction of writing as a career that this is a very pleasant and low-maintenance process - there’s something therapeutic about allowing the imagination free play in this way. It’s almost as though there are entire universes inside us, trying to escape into our outer worlds through the tiny keyhole that is our heads, in the miniscule amount of time that we permit that channel to open up…

90% of writers - those that actually get started on writing - sit down and simply write scene after scene straight from their imaginations. It’s a huge part of the attraction of writing as a career that this is a very pleasant and low-maintenance process - there’s something therapeutic about all...

21/06/2025

One good place to start as a writer is in thinking about readers. There's a mental process which you can go through to help you focus on the effect that you want to create as a writer. Here are some tips on how to go about it…

One good place to start as a writer is in thinking about readers. There's a mental process which you can go through to help you focus on the effect that you want to create as a writer. Here are some tips on how to go about it. 1. Picture your ideal reader sitting across the table from you in a pub o...